A Hole in the Darkness
by Astralis
Summary: Hannah takes a deep breath in, and fills the empty spaces with mountain air. Missing scene from What Remains. Hints of PeterHannah.


**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This isn't quite what I intended it to be, but it is what it is. Missing scene from "What Remains" with spoilers up to that point, including "Hope Falls". The title is also from "What Remains".

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own _Higher Ground _or anything associated with it, including Hannah.

* * *

Hannah takes a deep breath in, and fills the empty spaces with mountain air.

Juliette, she thinks. Juliette, Juliette, Juliette.

A log shifts and falls in the fire. Hannah stares into the flames and through them, at Peter, lying on his side with his back to her. If she understood how Peter coped, then maybe she could apply his secrets to her own life.

She's tired tonight, bone-tired and brain-tired and heart-tired, but she won't sleep. Juliette is out there, alone, scared, maybe hurt, and Hannah can't lose another child so she'll sit and watch over the dark woods and count the minutes until sunrise. In the daylight they'll find Juliette and bring her home again.

After that she'll rest.

Hannah loves Horizon completely, but she's starting to wonder how much more she can give. She's given Horizon her past, turned her own story and her own pain into a teaching tool, a moment of empathy with a hurting kid. It's not enough to tell them about her alcoholic father, about the beatings, about how she drank herself, and became addicted to drugs and slept around and had two abortions before her eighteenth birthday - she can't tell it like that, like a story that happened to someone else a hundred years ago. It has to be her story and it has to hurt, and it hurts like hell every time she drags it up.

Everything Hannah has she's given to Horizon, to Peter, to her kids. All her time, energy, love, hope, joy, despair - it's no wonder her marriage is failing, because there's nothing left over for Jerry except exhaustion.

In return, it's filled her up with the stories of her kids like filling a jar with rocks, wedging them in until the jar will break before it takes any more, but leaving empty spaces around the hard sharp edges that almost nothing can fill. Bulimia and self-harming and addictions and depression and dyslexia and abuse of all forms and that's without all the other secrets her kids are still carrying. Sometimes Hannah thinks that if she meets one more hurting kid, hears one more story of pain and anguish she'll choke on despair, but she doesn't, because she has to just keep on going. Her kids need her, Peter needs her, Horizon needs her. It's what she tells herself over and over as she lies alone in bed at night, thinking of Jerry sleeping in the hard guest room bed.

Juliette, Hannah thinks into the darkness. Kat. Shelby. Scott. Ezra. Auggie. Daisy.

Isaac. Always Isaac.

Peter grunts, rolls over, sits up and blinks at her. "Go to sleep, Hannah."

She shakes her head. "Can't. Not till I know Juliette's all right."

Peter shuffles round to her side of the fire, sleeping bag and all, and sits close beside her. "She's my responsibility," Hannah says, and rests her head on Peter's shoulder.

She's so tired.

"I know," Peter says, putting an arm round her shoulders. "But you did the right thing. Kat did the right thing. Jules will do the right thing. You'll see."

"I hope so." Hannah's coming to the end of all her strength, and she knows Peter can hear it in her voice. He pulls her closer.

Hannah and Peter, against the world. Peter has more of her than she's given Jerry since the early days of their marriage. In fact, more than once, during their worst fights, Jerry accused her of having an affair with Peter. It hurt because it was both so close to the truth and so far away at the same time, and because Hannah hasn't been sure of what she wants for years.

She and Jerry have been talking again, though - since Isaac - and she's been revisiting the dreams they put on hold for Horizon and the chances they could still have.

She can feel the warmth of Peter's body through her cheek, and she knows that to have her second chance with Jerry she'll have to leave Peter. If it was just Horizon and the kids they could make it work, but so much of everything is about Peter and Hannah doesn't think she can cope with that.

Peter is stroking her shoulder with his thumb. "It's been a bad run lately. For all of us."

"Isaac was my fault," Hannah says, "and Juliette - "

"Jules will be fine," he says, slowly and firmly.

"Isaac wasn't," Hannah whispers.

"Juliette isn't Isaac."

"Don't tell me I'll get over this some day."

"You won't. You just learn to live with it. You know that, Hannah."

Maybe she does.

The minutes slide slowly past as they watch the fire burn and crackle and finally, Peter sighs. "You need to get some sleep, Hannah. You'll be no good to Juliette if you're exhausted."

It's the one argument that can get through to her tonight, because despite all the thoughts circling through her head Juliette is the most important. Hannah lies on her back and looks up to the stars. She always loved the stars.

"Sleeping," says Peter. "Eyes shut, Hannah."

"Fine."

Peter's fingertips brush across her forehead and down her cheek and it's all Hannah can do not to open her eyes again. "Sleep well," he whispers.

Hannah thinks of Jerry, and Peter, and Sophie somewhere in Africa, and somehow she falls asleep.

She wakes the next morning to the embers of the fire, the sun rising in the distance, and the sharp knowledge that Juliette is still out there somewhere. Almost before she manages a coherent thought Hannah's up, shouting Juliette's name to the woods and the sky and to Juliette out there alone, waiting for help.

When they've got Jules back, when they know she's safe, then Hannah will make her decision. Until then, all she can do is keep looking and hoping.

Hannah takes a deep breath, and shouts again.

* * *

**THE END**


End file.
